The pair may not agree on much, but at least voters can agree that a rather drab election season has suddenly become more colorful, and not only because Rosen’s campaign signs typically match his shirts.

Rosen initially hinted that he might seek Eddy’s seat in a column for Worcester Magazine, writing that he needs to lose weight and that the last year he ran for office, in 2007, he slimmed down by campaigning.

“So now I have a weighty decision to make,” he wrote in the May 16 column. “Should I be the first Worcester City Council candidate to run to lose?”

Not everyone was amused. The day after Rosen took out nomination papers, Eddy said he called him and inquired about his plans.

“He said, ‘Play along with the joke, Bill,’ ” Eddy recalled. “I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He said, ‘If a reporter calls, say you’re gonna help me lose weight.’ Then he said, ‘Maybe I’ll withdraw.’ At that point, I was as bewildered as they come.”

Rosen claims he told Eddy no such thing. He said the column was written “tongue in cheek” and that he told Eddy he’d decide whether to run over the next few days. He said they also joked about walking together to lose weight and that Eddy complained “that he won’t be able to watch his sons play baseball” if forced to campaign.

“He feels entitled to that seat and it’s wrong,” said Rosen, who added that Eddy upbraided him for running against a fellow Democrat.

A retired teacher, Rosen is a former member of the School Committee who served two terms on the City Council before abruptly pulling out of the race in 2009, citing campaign burnout. Eddy, a longtime Democratic Party activist, is a three-term incumbent seeking his fourth term representing the city’s West Side and Webster Square areas.

Eddy said Rosen refused to explain why he planned to run against him. When Eddy pressed, he described Rosen’s response as “Rosenesque.” Asked to define the term, Eddy said, “You know, the kind of answer that makes you say, ‘Huh?’ If I was going to run against someone, I’d have a list of reasons why. But his only rationale is that he needs to lose weight. If this is a gag, I’m losing my sense of humor.”

Rosen said it’s no gag and that he was “swamped with positive feedback” after writing the column. He said he’s running because Eddy isn’t visible in District 5 and doesn’t return phone calls. Eddy, meanwhile, claimed Rosen “craves press but hasn’t been terribly effective” on the council. He also called Rosen’s campaign habit of standing on street corners in matching shirts and signs “a little undignified.”

Regardless, both men indicated they would bring their A game to a campaign season shaping up to be so listless that the Sept. 17 preliminary election was canceled because there aren’t enough candidates to warrant a runoff.

“At the least,” Rosen said, “people should thank me for making this more interesting.”